Today's meeting was started in the usual fashion with grace by Bill Williams and Don Shaw leading the club in O Canada. A toast to Her Majesty the Queen and Canada was followed up by the head table introductions.

The head table consisted of Tom Arkell, the speaker Brian McMullan, President Rick Merritt, Sgt-at-Arms Henry Becker, committee-in-spotlight Art Weaver of the Civic Affairs committee and introducing our guests was Kim Widdicombe.

Kim Widdicombe

Today's guests included: Bekki Kugler our exchange student, Heidi Wilson guest of Judith Barker, Serge Paquin guest of Oraine De Rosa, Christine Clark guest of Debbie Sevenpifer, Bill Hallett, Marce Heit, Dee Kozlowski, Catherine Livingston and Nancy Machintosh all guests of Betty Lou Souter.

Art Weaver gave the club an update on the civic affairs committee. The primary project is the Rotary Park. The environmental studies have been completed and we are waiting on a response. Once this takes place a detailing of the park facilities can go forward in order to prepare a budget. When a budget has been outlined we will be able to approach various stakeholders i.e. private and government sources for funding. The target date to start this process is tentatively 2008. The civic affairs committee has put forth a tremendous amount of work so far. Our club has a lot of specialized talent in this area and hopefully their efforts will prove successful in benefiting our entire community.

Tom Arkell	Art Weaver

Birthdays: Wendy Southall, Alex McKee, Harold Nash, Peter Lumsden and Bill Ford all celebrated their birthdays this week. Bill needed a special permit from the fire chief in order to light all 91 candles.

Peter Lumsden, Harold Nash, Bill Ford and Alex McKee

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1. President Rick announced that the Lockport Rotary club will now be meeting at noon on Tuesday at the Lockport Town and County Club. The new location of the Medina Rotary club is "Another time, Another place" in Millville.
2. John Snowling announced a ski day for February 16th in Ellicottville - speak to John about possible car pooling. John also announced that our club has raised $500 for Toque Tuesday to benefit the raise the roof campaign. Also John announced that the regular noon meeting on February 15th is cancelled in lieu of the evening social valentine's dinner. Cost is $40 per person - tickets will be on sale next week as well.

John Snowling

HAPPY DOLLARS

• Walter Sendzik started off the happy dollars by donning his stylish toque and announcing the formation of a prosperity council to help bring new wealth to our city.
• John Snowling was so excited selling toques and tickets that he forgot to purchase a 50/50 draw ticket.
• John Lehnen announced that the Canadian Junior Curling championships for both men and women will be taking place this week so come out and enjoy.
• Dave Butler and his rink won a Silver medal at the Rotary CanAm curling bonspiel.
• Henry Klassen enjoyed a trip to South Africa - he had a chance to visit an aids orphanage that our club had donated money to.
• George Doty delivered a birthday joke for Bill.
• Tom Pekar is looking for toothless Rotarians to participate in a dental implant project involving CT scans.
• Betty Lou acknowledged all the people who volunteered in the toque Tuesday campaign - it helps the homeless through the raising the roof program.
• Ross Burns announced that Rib Fest will take place August third to seventh.
• Dan Patterson announced that our club members have best voices of any Rotarians. Dan was also pleased to announce that Niagara College will soon be breaking ground on a state of the art auditory clinic for the hearing impaired.
• The pot has grown to $1371.45 - perhaps this explains our improved attendance. Earl Alton failed to draw the winning ticket. How (un)fortunate!

Program

Tom Arkell	Mayor Brian McMullan

Tom Arkell introduced Brian McMullan as today's speaker. Brian was elected as the new Mayor of St. Catharines in November 2006. Prior to this Brian has worked in the recycling business. Brian is married to Ruth and has four children.

Brian has experienced a renewed energy and optimism within the city since the election and outlined his vision for the city.

Brian announced the formation of a prosperity council along with the local chamber of commerce. St Catharines has the 3rd lowest average income in Ontario for communities over 100 000 people. He would like to find ways to increase the wealth of the community. The mayor and members of the chamber visited the city of Waterloo to learn from their experiences. The meeting was constantly interrupted by the sounds of blackberries.

The new mayor also stressed a need to controlling expenses and budgets. A zero based budget process was approved in which every expense will be reviewed. Police service board members will be required to itemize all gifts received - too bad Larry. The mayor hopes to complete this review by the end of March.

Brian emphased the city commitment to see the new hospital meets all the time lines set out by the ministry. The city will also be looking at means to raise funds to help build the hospital.

The new mayor would like to work with Brock and Niagara College to help attract and retain new graduates. He would like to see the formation of an incubation/innovation centre to help fund and mentor graduates.

The downtown core is always a concern but Brian would like to see the rapid implementation of proposals from the downtown action committee. He would also like to see Brock move its Performing Arts Centre to the downtown core.

Finally Brian touched on the environment by proposing "green" building codes. This is not a new revenue source for the city but rather an encouragement of more environmentally friendly building practices. He would like to encourage community garden projects and would like to be more vigilant in discouraging graffiti.

Rick Merritt and Brian McMullan

John Snowling thanked Brian for his talk and welcomed the new mayor as our club's newest honourary member.